


The untranslatable dark

by maplewoodmoth



Series: Chains Upon Your Children: Obscurial Harry [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Hagrid will appear again, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Obscurial Harry Potter, Obscurials (Harry Potter), Obscurus (Harry Potter), have no worries, ok some worries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:15:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29922939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maplewoodmoth/pseuds/maplewoodmoth
Summary: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom & Harry Potter
Series: Chains Upon Your Children: Obscurial Harry [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2081037
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	The untranslatable dark

Life at the Dursleys can hardly be called life, but it is existence at the very least. Harry doesn’t thrive, he just passes through the days eerie and absent, going through the motions and craving something more than this pointless existence.

His bright spot is that the Dursleys leave him alone for the most part, ignoring his existence as if he is more than a major inconvenience. As if he doesn’t even exist. It’s delightful, if lonely. What helps, though Harry refuses to admit it, is that he’s got his own bedroom now, different than the cupboard under the stairs: one of the old rooms upstairs that Dudley stores his old and broken toys- things to be forgotten about, much like Harry himself. 

Harry cleans it up as best he can, and makes use of the ability to have a window that he can open and look out of. And, so it seems, to receive mail through. Specifically from Hagrid. 

At first Harry wants to ignore it, pretend that it doesn’t exist- because as kind and nice and wonderful as Hagrid was, he still dropped Harry off at the Dursley’s and with nothing but Hedwig to keep him company, Harry feels almost like it was all a wonderful, wonderful dream. But well, Hedwig looks at the window with envy- at the owls coming and going and delivering mail, and Harry aches at how cooped up and frustrated she must feel. How lonely. And well, he remembers Hagrid’s kind hands, and creased crows feet, and hunched shoulders and how his voice shook when he told Harry as honestly as he could why he had to go back to Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon’s tender mercies. It makes it enough to ache, to sympathize with her, to open her cage and let Hedwig fly around for her pleasure, and it’s enough to convince him to open the letters from Hagrid. It’s only a month and a half, but it feels like an eternity and yet no time at all passes. 

The letters help. 

They always hold spelling mistakes, and earnestness, and kindness in the curve of the rounded edges that slant across the page. They ramble and comfort and talk about mundanities in wizard life, and explanations for everything- as if Hagrid doesn’t want Harry to miss out or be confused or left out anymore. Not for anything. 

**

The day of the train arrives, September 1st arrives, and some things are the same in any universe. The kindness of the Weasley’s will always be one. And the steadfastness of Ron will be another. But in this universe, Ron is not the first person whom Harry runs into, who offers to share his train carriage with. In this universe, Neville Longbottom will be quiet and folded in on himself, close to tears from another lecture from his Gran, from almost losing Trevor, from being a failure of a grandson and to the rest of the family. Of never being enough. And in this universe, standing alone on the train platform, waiting for the train that will take him away, away to another place he will never live up to people’s expectations, Neville curls in on himself, alone but for his hand-me-down wand, his small suitcase, and Trevor’s box clenched tightly in his hand. 

In this universe however, he feels a presence appear at his side, a lonely and small thing, and when he turns his head and looks down, he sees a small boy, his age probably, dressed in too big hand-me-down clothes, a shiny new suitcase, and owl hooting unhappily, clutching a wand just as tightly as Neville is, but with his shoulders hunched in, as if he’s lonely. As if he’s scared but too proud to admit it. 

The boy who Neville doesn’t know, but will soon enough, stares straight ahead. He pushes his glasses up, taped as they are, in a way that makes them keep slipping, and mutters to himself “No way out but through, I guess.” 

Neville feels like he’s intruding or something and tries to stay quiet, hoping the other boy doesn’t notice him and his intrusive presence. Until at least, the boy slants a glance at Neville out of the corner of his eyes, and says in the most serious tone he can manage, “guess that means we better catch the carriages before they fill up, huh?” 

Because in any universe, Harry knows kindness. Knows how hard it is to find. Knows the look of an outcast- the lonely and downtrodden. Especially in this universe, Harry knows. 

And Neville apparently, unknowingly, has won this lonely loyalty. 

(Later when he finally realises that he’s stuck with Harry, no matter the house, no matter the year, no matter the event, he will realise this as the cursed blessing it is. This loyalty without reason? This lonely devotion, carefully given and chosen? They may never be close, but in this moment, Harry sees a kindred spirit [of a sort] and claims that connection. And whatever it brings him, Neville will forever be grateful for this connection, especially in this first moment.) 

**

They get separated. Of course they do: there is a rush and a bustle and collisions between desperate students trying to find room to fit in, room to claim, room to grow. But Neville and Harry, despite that first immediate connection, get separated. 

There is that connection, yes, but sometimes connections aren’t enough, it is the choices to continue them that persist. 

Neville will find Hermione, as he does, after he loses Trevor. And Harry? Harry finds Ron. There are some consistencies as there are in many universes and their alterations, and in this universe, as it is in many, Harry and Ron find each other. That is an indisputable fact; that these two lonely boys among many find each other. So Harry finds Ron- or maybe that isn’t quite right. 

Ron finds Harry. And, as is the backbone of their friendship, of their loyalty, Ron will find Harry again and again, making that same choice, as he in turn is chosen as well. 

But we’ll get to that later. 

Ron finds Harry, following an instinct that makes his stomach twisty, that his mum always says to follow. He follows that source of rightness, that unerring feeling that makes him determined to see something through to the end, no matter where it gets him. 

It’s that thread of potential that Ron feels and follows, that thread of connection, and with that sense of change and choice, he follows it to the lone and bright train carriage. Empty, save for the single figure curled up and resting in the sunlight. 

And with that feeling of rightness settling in his bones, and quieting his nerves, Ron smiles awkwardly, all gangling and loose-limbed and asks “Do you mind? Everywhere else is full.” 

Some things, however minute, stay the same in different universes. This is one of them.

**Author's Note:**

> So I recently had some new ideas of where I'm going to take this series and it's gonna be really fun (for me, at least). Most of canon I'm straight up tossing out the window, and the rest I'm roasting at 365 degrees Fahrenheit in an oven and carving juicy juicy pieces off of for my pleasure.   
> Like I said. Fun! 
> 
> Also yes I am going somewhere with this heavy-handed symbolism, (especially involving Ron)- why do you ask?


End file.
